France

A few weeks later...

Before we left Australia we had emailed Nicolas at Domaine de Gagnebert our arrival details, but hadn’t had time for a reply, so we weren’t 100% sure that they were, in fact, coming to collect us.

On our arrival in Angers we dragged the suitcases up yet another set of mammoth set of stairs and crossed to the front of the station. We couldn’t see anyone fitting Nico’s description so Simon and the girls went to see if they could find anyone – or at least a bus timetable.

5 minutes later the phone rang. Nico and Pierre, our landlord, had been standing at the underpass (the main platform exit – with NO stairs) waiting for us, and Simon had passed right by them. Within no time we had crammed all of the suitcases and children into two tiny Peugots and headed off to Juigne-sue Loire. The girls and I went with Pierre, and we managed to have a good chat with Pierre, which was surprising considering he speaks no English at all and my French was abominable at best. As it turns out his late mother had the same birthday as Asher (I wonder if she too exhibited signs of being born on the same day as Evil Knievel).

The village looked gorgeous as we drove in, very old and very European, with lots of slate buildings and geraniums everywhere. Pierre gave us a quick tour of the village and showed us where the winery, supermarket (well mini-market), boulangerie and post office were. It was a relief to discover that nothing was more than a 10 minute walk from the house as we were quite apprehensive about being without wheels for 2 months.

Nico, Si and Asher turned up to the house at the same time we did and Pierre gave us the grand tour. To our surprise the cottage was actually better than the website, virtually unheard of in our travel history. The central beams in the ceilings were 2 foot thick, the bathroom and kitchen were immaculate, and we even had a dishwasher. The fireplace in the lounge was big enough for the girls to stand in, or lie lengthways, and the back garden was lovely, with a small gazebo and full outdoor setting.

Savannah and Ebony had their own room, and Asher was in with Simon and I. Apparently our request for a portacot had caused much consternation, as no one could find a translation, but there in our bedroom, in all it’s glory was exactly what we had requested, along with brand new sets of linen in both pink and blue as Pierre didn’t know if we had a boy or girl. He had also acquired for us a highchair, baby bath, changemat and pram, bless his soul!

He had also stocked the house with fresh vegies from his amazing garden and Gagnebert wines for us.

After we unloaded we headed off on foot for groceries and a quick trip to the winery. After stocking up on essentials (bread, cheese and beer) at the shops, we walked the whole 8 minutes to the Domaine de Gagnebert and Nico took us for a tour around the winery and introduced us to the rest of our hosts, Christophe – his older brother, the winemaker, Daniel and Jean Yves – his father and uncle, the winery owners, and the rest of the crew. Nicolas is the only one fluent in English, and other than Christophe no-one else speaks a single word of it – but everyone seemed really friendly, welcoming and pleased to see us.

We also met Christophes wife Celine and their two boys Axel (4) and Tom (2). Celine was a godsend for me, the same age as I am and fluent in English, she is also one of the sweetest people I have met (and incredibly kind and patient for a girl that’s 4 months pregnant). Tom and Asher spent their first hour of acquaintance playing in the rain with Axel and Ebony pretending to be frogs (the real ones not French people). It was love at first sight for Axel and ‘la fille parle Anglais’ (aka ‘the girl speak English’, aka Ebony).

Whilst the kids played, Simon and I had a quick jetlagged tasting. Their Cremant de Loire (methode traditionel sparkling Chenin) was sensational, and just the pick me up we needed (little did I know this was the start of a loving friendship between Gagnebert Cremant and I). The reds however, were a little hard to take on a jet-lagged empty stomach as they are very different to what we drink at home. The area produces true food wines that show a great deal of evidence of the schist (slate) soils they are grown on, using predominately Cabernet and Cabernet Franc the region turns out reds built to last the distance with huge tannin structures, and plenty of acid to boot. On this note we decided to return to the tasting another day armed with a full stomach and wandered home in the twilight, marvelling at the bats and toads and the lovely country air.

Simon started work the very next day as they began picking the day we arrived, so the girls and I had to settle in by ourselves, luckily we had Pierre to help.

On our first day he took the kids and I to HYPER-U in the nearby town of Murs-Erigne for some food shopping. This supermarket services about 8 local villages and is approximately the size of a large Woolworths with K-mart attached and a bakery, fish market, butcher and the hugest cheese shop imaginable thrown in for good measure. Pierre was most helpful, advising what was ‘beaucoup cher’ (very dear) and what was ‘bon’. It was quite funny trying to translate some things, but we managed exceptionally well – with one exception. Sticky Tape was not in ANY of the phrase books. I’m quite sure that the other shoppers thought I was mad trying to mime using tape to Pierre, who was utterly confused. We eventually found it – and if you ever need to know it is ‘adhesif’ or even Cello (but not Scotch Tape – I tried that one). It reminded me sharply of the advice – if you can’t find a word in French then pick the most complicated English word for it and you will likely be close (either from similar latin roots – or because the English evolved from the French), this advice continued to work well for the rest of the trip.

Pierre was an absolute gem with the girls and carted Ebony around the shops in his trolley the entire trip, he even bought the girls a pad of pink heart sticky notes. I think he was entirely stunned by the sheer volume of our groceries though, we had an awful lot of trouble trying to fit them in the back of the Peugot.

Nico was kind enough to offer us the use of his car on weekends, so Sturday morning we drove down to the town of Brissac-Quince to have a look at the local Chateau. The Chateau is still inhabited by the 13th Duc de Brissac and has a huge 204 rooms, of which we toured about 20. It was originally built in the 1400’s, but then was partially ruined, and rebuilt in the 1600’s. The artwork and antiques were sensational, but it’s the history that blows you away. We stood in the room where Kind Louis the 13th (Henry 4th’s son) reconciled with his mother Marie de Medici, still furnished in period furniture and hung with portraits of the two. The girls loved the 19th century theatre all decked out in red velvet, and spent the rest of the day imagining themselves on stage.

Saturday night we had dinner at Christophe and Celines house in St Saturnin (2 villages over). I think dinner is an understatement, perhaps degustation would do – but the sheer amount of food and wine was astounding. Whilst the children demonstrated that language can be no barrier to playtime, we tucked into homegrown melon and smoked salmon with Cremant de Loire, then homemade pastries with blue cheese and pancetta with Coteaux de L’Aubance the local appellation botrytis Chenin (sensational) then a selection of other wines with cheese fondue, and back to the L’Aubance and Cremant with Chocolate fondue for dessert, followed by Armangac as a digestif. We rolled out of the door at 2am feeling full and merry and extremely lucky that we had met such wonderful friends. Simon and Nicolas even saw a deer in the vineyards on the way home.

Sunday was a beautiful day, the first clear one since we arrived (we were initially accused of brining the first heavy rain in 5 months with us when we arrived – we had to explain that we couldn’t have, as there is no rain to bring from where we live). We stayed home and relaxed most of the day, sitting out the back with a few drinks and sketching each other and Pierres magnificent garden, with it’s huge quince (coing) tree and rows upon rows of vegetables. Our peace was disturbed from time to time however, with the sound of not too distant shotguns, a little unnerving but understandable as it was the first day of hunting season and the entire village is surrounded by forest (deer and boar) and vineyards (rabbits and pheasant). We also had a falcon dive bomb, and hit, a pigeon about 2 metres from where we were sitting, causing a loud thump, a huge cloud of feathers and a very pompous looking falcon sitting on our wall.

We also wandered through the village (very quiet on a Sunday afternoon) and over to La Louet, a tributary of the Loire (the actual river was about a kilometre from the village). Simon had a ball teaching the girls to skim rocks, they were determined to learn and had so much fun and Asher had a great time digging in the mud and yelling at the ducks and geese that gathered around (to their own peril with stones being thrown every which way). It was a beautiful day and reminded me of my own childhood holidays.

Needless to say that our body clocks were still completely out of whack and the next week was filled with 4am starts. It was nice for Simon to have company for breakfast though, an unusual thing at home. On Monday the girls and I got our little ‘Ecole’ going in the dining room. Each day we did Maths in the morning, followed by French and English. The girls thrived on the one-on-one attention they got and generally we all really enjoyed our lessons. It also helped me get my French a little bit more on track – which was invaluable when trying to communicate with Pierre.

The first few days Simon was home for lunch, but after that it was only every second day as the winery was sponsored for their vintage lunches by Cheval Blanc, the local bar in the main street (a strange smoky male establishment where lots of drunk men on bar stools would stare every time the girls and I walked past during the day). Simons first 4 course vintage lunch at the winery consisted of cold meat, a main course of tongue (apparently similar in flavour and consistency to fritz – eugh), cheese and éclairs, accompanied – of course – by copious amounts of wine.

Simon really enjoyed the work and the company at the winery and was really taken by their passion for quality fruit and uncomplicated winemaking. I think he also enjoyed the family nature of the winery where everyone was valued and treated with respect (other than the usual vintage piss-taking that can’t be avoided – even if you don’t speak the language). He also enjoyed the loaf of bread with pate and rillaud (pork) accompanied by, of course, wine that they had for casse-croute (snack time or ‘smoko’) every morning. He was quite astounded by how much wine some of the boys managed to put away each day, whilst still remaining reasonably compis at their jobs (well no-one lost a hand in the crusher anyway). Nicolas explained it like this “In Australia it is an offence to drink at work – in France it is only an offence to be drunk at work.” Apparently a drunk is someone who drinks as much as you do – but you don’t like them.

There was also a brush with fame in Simons first week at work. The boys took him out to cellar door where there was someone who apparently wanted to meet him – and introduced him to Gerard Depardieu. ‘Gerard’ as he was affectionately termed from that moment on is a good friend of Daniel (the boys father) and a fellow member of the local wine association Le Cul de Plomb (named for the shape of their bums as they sit and drink together for hours on end). Gerard owns a Chateau (winery and castle) in the nearby town of Tigne and invited Simon and the boys (and me by default) to come down for a tasting.

After that first burst of rain the weather in Juigne was really mild, though a little like Melbourne in its ability to change several times throughout the day, with clear balmy evenings. Simon and I took to having a few ends of Boules (Petanque or Bocce) most evenings in the front yard, accompanied, as we were strictly directed, by a few drinks, very relaxing and a lot of fun – though it helps when the children have gone to bed and Asher isn’t trying to swallow the Jack whole, Ebony doing strange incantations over it, or Savannah sweeping the field between shots.

The boys promised to take us down to the local “Society de Boule de Fort” to show us how the regional game was played. It is played indoors with a wood and metal version of what resembles a lawn bowls ball, but the major difference is that the playing field is a wide slightly curved fibreglass floor (somewhat like a flattened half-pipe) and the boules are launched with enough delicacy that you can (and indeed are expected to) walk to the bar ad have a drink before returning to see how your shot is progressing. You are also required to wear bedroom slippers – what a curious game!

The girls and I spent quite a lot of time doing schoolwork and drawing out in the gazebo, and Pierre would pop in to visit every now and then. Our conversation improved quite rapidly, as my French got better, but I still found the need to write him notes to ask anything specific, which he would sent back full of grammatical corrections. He liked to help the girls with their French lessons as well. One afternoon in early in our stay he popped in to visit and the girls were looking through the Lonely Planet phrasebooks. Savannah was reading “Meeting People” and piped up “Bonjour Pierre, Je suis un travlo”, much to his and my mirth, as this translates as “I am a cross-dresser/transvestite”. Good old Lonely Planet – something to say in every situation!

We also did a lot of walking, and decided to map the village by counting the steps we took down each street and marking them on a grid. We did quite well until we reached a long stretch of road with no cross streets and it was Ebonys turn to count – it quickly became obvious that her concentration span doesn’t reach to counting 400 steps, and at intervals she was making up numbers and shouting them out. The next day we discovered a draw full of village maps which took the wind out of our sails a little, but also gave us more places to explore.

Every couple of days the girls and I would walk to the winery in the afternoon to check our email and catch up with everyone. The girls would watch Asher and I would do some work, then when Simon finished we would have a couple of glasses of Cremant de Loire with the guys, and often Celine and the boys. The kids would all have a great time playing on the wine trolleys and splashing in the water barrels out the front of the winery.

Simon would usually ride home on Nicolas’ bike, with one of the girls on the crossbar, and I would walk. This was all going well until a Tuesday night when Savannah decided to put her foot in the front wheel. They both went straight of the handlebars. Luckily Simon only hurt his elbow and took some skin off, so he was able to carry Poss the rest of the way home, she had chipped her front tooth, and badly bruised her foot where she caught it in the wheel, and was completely beside herself. After the mandatory toe wiggling we decided the foot wasn’t broken and iced it to stop the swelling. The next day Savannah refused to walk on it, and could only eat soft food because her mouth was sore, but on the third day when we threatened to take her to hospital if things didn’t improve (which would have been a feat in itself with no car and only 2 buses a day) she made a miraculous recovery.

We spent more time at home that week waiting for Savannah to make a full recovery, and discovered a few gems on French TV. During the day it was amazing how many chat and game shows were on, they seem to LOVE to talk, and talk, and talk. The hosts are all very expressive, theatrical and more than slightly lecherous middle aged men. Our favourite was a show something like Deal or no Deal, where each night we would take bets on what point the contestant would cry, there were weepers, bawlers and even one lady who collapsed to the floor in tears, and the host always ready to get in there for a cuddle and a squeeze.

We also discovered Star Academy, the French equivalent of Australian Idol, but much, much better, all of the contestants live together in a gaudy chateau and are expected to do theatre, dance, music and singing lessons, write their own song, and each Friday night put on a 3 hour stage show that is something akin to the MTV Music Award show, where they have dancers costumes and sing duets with people like Julio Englesias and Beyonce.

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